Find Me A 100 Winner / Tareq Quiroz / 22 May 2009 / 3

The group stages are over and any mistakes now mean instant elimination from IPL2. The Delhi Daredevils have been the best team in the tournament and talented and explosive though the Deccan Chargers are, it's likely to be Virender Sehwag's lot that book their place in the final, says TQ.

Team News

This is not a time to be tinkering with your side and you can be sure that the captains will be putting out a tried and tested line-up. Deccan Chargers have lost their last two games and can count themselves quite fortunate to fall into these semis. That won't stop them fielding the usual crew though and you should expect old boys Gilchrist and Gibbs to open the batting. Symonds and Sharma will come in next with the intention to hit it out of the park. On the bowling front Ohja and RP Singh are the men captain Gilchrist will be looking to take the vital wickets.

The Delhi Daredevils have undoubtedly been the best side in the group stages and they will be very confident going into this game. Despite some swapping and changing recently Sehwag will opt for the big guns for this game. He and Gambhir will open and you have to think one of them will fire. They have plenty in behind just in case with AB de Villiers and Dilshan being their two biggest run scorers in this tournament so far. Ashish Nehra and Dirk Nannes have lead the bowling superbly so far and the Daredevils' two main wicket-takers will fancy some more scalps against the Chargers.

Venue, pitch and conditions

The beauty of this game is that we saw exactly how the pitch at Centurion Park is playing in yesterday's double header. We have to take those games as a guideline and as such you will have to expect plenty of runs. We had an average score of around 165 and it is fair to say that had the Daredevils batted the full twenty overs then they wouldn't have been too far away from 200. There will be some wear and tear on the pitch from those games but nothing too dramatic. It may be that the spinners will get a bit of extra joy out of the wicket but in summary it should be a nice sunny day with plenty of runs scored.

Match Odds

Each team has played fourteen games so far in this year's IPL so there really is plenty of form to go on when trying to decide the winner of this encounter. However, there is this tendency in the T20 form of the game for past results to count for little. There is a belief that if two perceived good sides go against each other then the odds must reflect this. After fourteen games in a matter of weeks I prefer to work off form and not "ifs" and "maybes".

There is no doubt that the Daredevils have been the best team in this year's IPL. They have won ten of the fourteen games and have a swagger about them that we saw yesterday that no other team has. Cast your minds back to this time last year when eventual winners Rajasthan had been sweeping all before them yet that form was largely overlooked in the knockout stages. Layers may be making the same mistake this year with the Daredevils.

Make no mistake; the Deccan Chargers are a formidable looking unit. For me though, that is all it is. They look great but so often fail to deliver. I feel that their chances hang with Andrew Symonds. He can take a game away from you very quickly with the bat and can bowl some very tight quick overs. If the Delhi Daredevils side can nullify him then victory is there for the taking. These two teams met twice in the group stages and Delhi won both times. I see absolutely no reason why that trend shouldn't continue here and the current [1.8] about the Daredevils looks mighty tempting to me.

Other markets

There are a lot of elements for the captains to consider during a game of T20 and I just get the feeling that it may be too much for Gilchrist. I can see him taking his eye of the ball with his batting and going quite cheaply. His fellow opener Gibbs was in terrific nick yesterday and I can see him quite comfortably outscoring his captain. Gibbs is available at [1.95] in the Gibbs v Gilchrist market and that looks a decent punt.

TQ says: Back Delhi Daredevils to beat Deccan Chargers at [1.8]

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(3)

1. rashid | 22 May 2009

   win this match deccan charger

2. rashid | 23 May 2009

   today win match banglore royal challengers

3. rashid | 23 May 2009

   Aslamoalikum?
   today win banglore?
   

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